National Register of Historic Places Program
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.
Liggett and Meyers Harpring Tobacco Storage Warehouse
Lexington, Kentucky
NR Reference Number: 13000110
Listed: 03/27/2013
1211 Manchester Street, Lexington, KY
Summary:
The Liggett and Myers Harpring Storage Warehouse (FA W-214) meets National Register Criterion A, significant for its association with the burley tobacco industry in Lexington, Kentucky between 1930 and 1980. _ The property's significance will be examined within the context the "Tobacco Industry in Lexington, Kentucky 1920-1980." The Harpring Warehouse is a steel-frame metal-clad storage warehouse, with space for over 20,000 hogsheads of tobacco; that tobacco was stored for shipment across the country, and represented a pivotal means of marketing the Liggett and Myers product. The structure was a specialized holding facility vital to their bottom line. Storage warehouses were one of two facilities constructed by national tobacco firms in Lexington, the other being re-drying and re-handling facilities. Though the built landscape of Lexington once teemed with tobacco sales warehouses, the storage warehouse was not as common. National firms did not have these types of facilities in every town where they bought tobacco, but made such a sizeable investment in centralized locations. The decline of the burley tobacco industry, which began in the 1970s, is reflected in the built landscape of Lexington. Warehouses that once teemed with activity during the winter sales season, or acted as very large vaults for a valuable product as it aged, are a quickly disappearing aspect of the local environment. Demolition of warehouses has been occurring since the 1990s, and has increased in the last decade as the demand for offcampus student housing for the University of Kentucky has risen. Local planning and zoning ordinances do not address the future or viability of this property type that transformed Lexington during the twentieth century; as such, the Harpring Storage Ware house stands as a rare specimen.
Link to full file: Liggett and Meyers Harpring Tobacco Storage Warehouse
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Last Updated: 06/13/2011 1900 hrs